, one of the few poets who flourished in the first periods of our
, one of the few poets who flourished
in the first periods of our poetical history, is supposed to
have been born before Chaucer, but of what family, or in
what part of the kingdom is uncertain. Leland was informed that he was of the ancient family of the Gowers of
Stitenham, in Yorkshire, and succeeding biographers appear to have taken for granted what that eminent antiquary
gives only as a report. Other particulars from Leland are
yet more doubtful, as that he was a knight and some time
chief justice of the common pleas; but no information respecting any judge of that name can be collected either in
the reign of Edward II. during which he is said to have
been on the bench, or afterwards. Weever asserts that he
was of a Kentish family and, in Caxton’s edition of the
“Confessio Amantis,
” he is said to have been a native of
Wales.